Thursday, July 16, 2009

Mother and Child Reunion

In Mother and Child Reunion, a tune penned by Paul Simon, lyrics mention "a strange and mournful day" and "I can't for the life of me remember a sadder day". This was all fans needed to speculate as to possible meanings. Perhaps the song referenced a child given up for adoption about to meet his or her mother. Maybe the mother or child had passed and now the one was joining the other in death.

When asked about the song, Paul Simon related that the title, Mother and Child Reunion, was lifted straight off a New York Chinese restaurant menu where it was used to reference a chicken and egg dish. Get it? Mother and child reunion? I thought it was clever because rather than be deep, the title referred to something that couldn't be more fleeting, Chinese food.

Anyhow, I'll allow you a brief peek into the twisted thought processes of Miss Missives. Thoughts of Mother and Child Reunion led me to thoughts of the chicken and the egg which led me to the classic dilemma of which came first. This in turn made me think of the Chinese dish, which made me think again of the Paul Simon song, which led me to ponder, which came first, the mother or the child? In this case it is clearly the mother which very circuitously leads me to my main point(yes there is one). The mother came first and with or without the child, the mother is still a woman, or a chicken or something.

My gripe is that so many women become mothers at the loss of nearly everything else. Jesus, no wonder so many women go through empty nest syndrome(see another chicken reference), because they all too frequently define themselves by motherhood alone. If I hear one more person(because yes, we are still people) refer to herself as a mommy to anyone other than her children, I will take needles and shove them in my eyeballs.

This is not exclusively directed at today's reviewee. Lolly, I get it, you're in the first year. That first year is very difficult and balance can be nonexistent. I know it can be hard to define yourself by much else when you are enmeshed in new babydom, but I know plenty of women with babies who still talk about other things.

Mommy Is Rock 'N Roll is your garden variety snoozefest, the quintessential mommyblog where the new baby is all encompassing. I can't sugarcoat it, there is very little here. Lolly has the same excitement of most new moms, figure woes, internal debates, sleep deprivation but her writing skills are not enough to lift this common experience up to a place where others can relate to it.

Lolly, like so many other moms, you are a thoughtful mother with a beautiful baby and almost nothing to say. If you want people to read what you write, you have to vary it a little. It's not that you cannot write about your daughter, or breastfeeding or slings or the things prolonged sleep deprivation does to a person. You can, but you need to pick out anecdotes, funny stories, unexpected things and throw in some stuff completely unrelated to Lolly the mom.

My best piece of advice? Go read great mom blogs and figure out why you like them. Are they funny, confessional, snarky, all out crazy? Figure out what they are doing right and emulate. I'm not saying copy or try to be them but it's okay to use these engaging blogs as a lesson on how to make yours more engaging.

As for the specifics, the template hurts my eyes. I don't like faux animal print. I didn't like it when Dolce and Gabbana used it, I certainly don't like it when it's splashed up on a page I am expected to read. I don't like pink font on black background but thank you for a font large enough to read without inciting some kind of violent head pounding. The sidebar could be cleaned up but it's not out of control. Get the Google ads off your site, the seventeen cents you are making a week isn't worth it. Pare down your blogroll or move it off the main page. If your blogroll is in excess of fifty blogs, it no longer means anything.

Lolly, Ask is a site that will definitely pants* you with no remorse. The reviewers here write and read and I'm not talking about Christmas newsletters or thank-you notes. While we complain about clutter and design and even grammar, you'll notice that people who can really tell a story generally get a pass. The reality, however, is that most people cannot tell a good story. Even if Princess Di and Michael Jackson came from beyond the grave to take them out to lunch, they'd still find a way to screw it up. So to turn around and write about the naturally mundane, like motherhood, is the equivalent of five Ambien and a Gin and Tonic.

Still, don't despair because the good thing about children and motherhood is everyone's baby is beautiful to them and your blog is your baby. So if Mommy Is Rock 'N Roll is what you want it to be, and you can look back over your old posts excited to read how you felt or where the baby was at that moment, then I suggest you pull your pants up and don't look back.














*d.Verb. American. To overpower someone and remove his trousers by force as a humiliation. Equivalent to the British debag. Usually only done to males as removal of the pants, the traditional male garment, is a symbolic emasculation. Pantsing in this sense may be used as an initiation rite, a punishment, or just done for fun.

48 comments:

  1. Well done, Miss. Um, someone tell her to pull up her pants already, we all know I can't be around any form of nudity without performing some odd act of carnal confusion.

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  2. As long as there are no cups, sandboxes or chocolate cake, you're in the clear.

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  3. Speaking of sandboxes, I have to figure out how to entertain a seven year old girl today. Suggestions?

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  4. Sandtoys and find a beach, build shit.

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  5. Yes, but what do I do with the Barbies?

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  6. You dress them, brush their hair, name your Barbies, then play out some catfight.

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  7. No three girl pileup, she's only seven. Wait is this the Punk we're talking about?

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  8. I'm guessing I should refrain from playing out any girl on girl situations.

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  9. Cupcakes, make hooker piratey cupcakes, the punk will have fun and the hooker will have cupcakes.

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  10. get a mix and if you can't find piratey doodads, get toothpicks, make punk draw little pirate flags and tape them to toothpicks, put in cupcakes, voila!

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  11. If MJ returns I hope he does the Thriller dance. Would be legen-wait for it-dary.

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  12. When I was seven I always played with Legos.

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  13. I second the making of cupcakes. Any seven year old is dying to drop everything and make cupcakes.

    Good call on the review. The few posts you linked to were basically diary style, the type of diary where you pray that no one ever finds it and discovers how fucking boring you are. I agree that the blog could be interesting for her to look back on, but it could also be a whole lot more interesting if it had a bit more description of her emotions and it was more thought out and focused on the writing itself.

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  14. Holy shit, have you soon the blogroll? I've never seen the word "mommy" so many times in once place.

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  15. Ouch. I went to the site and the background gave me a fucking epileptic seizure. Didn't even know I was prone to them. Spent twenty minutes with a spoon jammed in my mouth.

    Don't ask me what the writing was about -- didn't get that far.

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  16. Jeez, Ill be back once the conversation devolves into talking about balls and boobies

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  17. Do not want. This blog doesn't interest me and the design is hideous.

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  18. Oh yeah, and

    I DO NOT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOUR BABY. IT IS JUST ANOTHER BABY.

    Sorry. I'm getting fed up with all the new moms on Facebook. "Lucy made a doodoo by herself! Yay!" and then all the other mommies go, "congrats!" like it was the first shit ever taken in the history of shitting.

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  19. I have been slowly culling the mommies from my friends list.

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  20. But you know, some people can tell you that their baby just took it's first shit in a way that sounds awesome cause they know how to tell a story. It makes me get all teary eyed and wish I was right there while the kid took his first dump.

    Kinda.

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  21. Ginny could make it an awesome story.

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  22. Definitely Ginny could. I love any stories of Ginny related to poop or boogars or anything else.

    I love Mr. Lady too.

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  23. Ginny could make Ginny taking a dump a good story.

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  24. Ginny once said that I made ME taking a dump a good story.

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  25. Um, that was me. I'm that anonymous.

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  26. I have to take a dump now.

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  27. Thank you guy (happy face)!

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  28. Alexander Hamilton7/16/2009 5:21 PM

    Me too. I'm gonna plant a pine tree as they say 'round these parts.

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  29. I gotta see a man about a horse.

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  30. Now, if she's sleep-deprived and falls asleep during sex, or even better, imagines her husband is a giant piece of turkey and starts nibbling, then I'll read it. Otherwise, it's just a blog for the girl to discover twenty years from now, and say, "My mother did love me."

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  31. By the way, Hamilton? We are so in a fight right now.

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  32. Droppin' the kids off at the pool.

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  33. James T. Kirk7/16/2009 6:25 PM

    I have to check my Captain's Log.

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  34. I just made some butt coffee.

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  35. Juan, that's despicable.

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  36. I'm being all nice and everything to that poor Warden (didn't like his review earlier this week.) He's over at my blog leaving a nasty comment. Poor guy.

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  37. MM - Fantastic and fair review.

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  38. Thank you Miss Missives! I didn't realize that my background was hard on the eyes of the AARP crowd. I was thinking about changing my layout anyway so you just helped push me over the edge. And yes, I noticed that my blog is boring. I used to have a blog that was raunchy and sad and very interesting. And then I fell in love, got married, and became someone that is completely different than my former self. Anyway, thanks for the review! I love AAYSR!

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  39. You should have a blog that's only about tits and toasters. And tit/toaster fetishes.

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  40. Better to be in love and boring than an interesting, lonely trainwreck. Maybe just put a little of the raunchy back in?

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  41. My panties are most definitely big these days. Anyone that takes a site like this seriously is asking for it. Check back in a week or so - I am going to redo my layout and I hope it's not another ugly D&G knockoff. LOVES!

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  42. I love how the mommy blogger has balls that are 296% larger than those of that puling weakling, the Warden.

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  43. Lolly! I'm so impressed! Wow. I would love to see something that joins both as well. I think BOTH lives you've lived sounds amazing. Please, please, please do it.

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  44. Awww, thanks Rassles, et al! If I write a good poop story, it's because the story writes itself, really.

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  45. MAYBE I'll slip some old stories in there. I was a stupid girl but at the time I thought I was really living life or whatever. We'll see.

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Grow a pair.